Myers: Agriculture is in the blood

Trader Profile

Agriculture always has been a part of Chris Myers’ life. The founder of M6 Capital Management grew up on a 2,000-acre farm in Mississippi, where his family grew row crops and raised catfish, and his interest persisted when he attended Mississippi State University, a land-grant school, expecting to continue in the family business. “When I went to college, I had full intentions, like every other farmer’s kid, to be a farmer,” he remembers.

After graduation, however, Myers changed his mind and went to work for Willard Sparks in Memphis. While at Sparks & Co., he traveled throughout North and South America looking at corn, soybeans, wheat and cotton for the agriculture guru. From there, he joined Sparks’ cattle feeding operation, Cattlco Inc., where he conducted hedging activity on corn, feeder cattle and fat cattle.

Through those years, as Myers puts it, “the endgame was that I wanted to be a [commodity trading advisor] (CTA).” So, in 2005 he launched his own CTA, M6 Capital Management (the “M” stands for Myers and the “6” is for Myers, his wife and their four children). In the seven years since its founding, M6, which manages $28.6 million in customer assets, has a compound annual return of 9.69% with a maximum drawdown of 15.41%. The program is up 15.27% in 2012 through August.

Myers trades outrights, calendar spreads and options in the grain and livestock sectors using a discretionary, fundamental-based strategy. “On every trade there is an underlying, fundamental reason that I am in the trade, and every day I have to monitor those two, or three or four fundamental variables that back up my reason for being in,” he says. “If one of those variables changes, then I have to adjust accordingly.”